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Wenger on his transfer market approach

Arsène Wenger is determined to strengthen his squad before the transfer window closes on September 2.

The Arsenal manager completed his business before the start of the Premier League season last year but brought in Ju Young Park, Andre Santos, Mikel Arteta and Per Mertesacker during the final days of the 2011 summer window.

Press conference

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Wenger is confident of making additions in the next 10 days but says the Club will conclude deals differently to two years ago.

“At that time it was linked with injuries, we had unexpected long-term injuries and you cannot sit there and do nothing at all,” Wenger said. “If you have unexpected injuries you have to do something about it.

“We are not in need of numbers like we were at the time. We have our targets, we will try to achieve that and I am confident we will get there.

“I am confident [of new signings]. The desire of the players to join us [makes me confident] and the fact that we have - maybe not as much as everyone writes - but we have some funds available to do the transfers.

“Ideally I would rather have the squad in place at the start of the season and I am a big fan to cancel the transfer window at the start of the season anyway.

“Once the season has started you should be capable to focus on the quality of your play and have everybody with the same players for the whole season - it makes sense.

“We work very hard on it and it didn't come off as quickly or as well as we wanted, but in football you have to deal with any situation and be patient. So as long as the transfer [window] is open, until the last minute anything can happen on many fronts.

“I'm very, very happy with the squad we have. When I tell you that, it's about the quality of the players I have. With the number, at the moment we are short.

“Therefore I would be a bit worried that number-wise, we are not strong enough to cope with all the targets a club like this has. We will not go into the new season with only the number of players we have.”

Wenger agrees that 'marquee signings' have a role to play at a football club - but he says that spirit and values are even more important.

“I can understand it [the interest people have in big names], but it’s five per cent of the game," he said.

"Ninety-five per cent of it is something more, it is what you see when you go on the pitch - the spirit inside the club, the values of the club.

"It is not only about that, football, and we have as well to fight, but football is not only about splashing out. I am not against it but it is not only that.

“The Champions League is, of course, the needed requirement for the top players," added Wenger. "The players say, ‘OK, we want to join Arsenal. We want to play the kind of football you play. But as well, we want to play in the Champions League’.

"Many players want to join us and, even more so, all the players who have been here, they want to come back here. It’s just for the way we treat people and for the football we play - or try to play - because unfortunately we’ve not always managed to do it.

“But they find something here they want to know again when they go somewhere else and many, many, many players - believe me - ask me to come back.”

Copyright 2015 The Arsenal Football Club plc. Permission to use quotations from this article is granted subject to appropriate credit being given to www.arsenal.com as the source23 Aug 2013

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